Okay, here it is toward the end of February in 2018. We have just had yet another mass shooting perpetrated by yet another homicidal/suicidal problem-drenched young man. He has ended 17 lives and has chosen by living to spend the rest of his life confined like a dangerous animal. The Republicans control all three branches of federal government. But there is a fourth branch that they also control: the National Rifle Association. Or should I say, the NRA controls the Republicans due to its single-issue voters and large donations to the Republican party and its candidates.

I don’t pretend to know what motivates a man like Wayne Lapierre, the NRA executive vice president. He seems to be wholly owned by his employer, heart and soul, lock, stock, and barrel. After every madman-committed attack on civilians, his answer is the same: arm the civilians. I honestly don’t think Lapierre, or for that matter Trump or any of the other Republican leaders care very much what happens to people victimized by gun violence on their watch. Their kids are in private schools, and they live with their families behind locked gates, either in gated communities or private estates guarded 24/7 by private security forces.

It is well-known that even trained police officers, in the heat of an emergency, have a difficult time identifying the shooter and aiming their firearms well enough to take him out without hitting an innocent bystander. Given that fact, how in hell are school teachers, who might be given a week-long training program, supposed to succeed? They are underpaid as it is without taking on the duty of trained gun expert / school security officer. In addition to their initial training, they would most certainly have to take refresher classes, or their training would be lost and forgotten. But even assuming that security teachers would help, then the shooter would attack the students elsewhere. If we made our schools into armed fortresses, how long would it take an armed malcontent to take his activities to the next football game? Maybe they would start focusing on parties, or maybe dances. To arm up enough people necessary to protect all student mass events would be prohibitively expensive, and likely wouldn’t work anyway.

So this is the situation: The wealthiest first world country is the most dangerous first world country. Because of the guns. Why aren’t guns and gun ownership ever studied by the government to see what can be done to improve gun safety? Like we have done with cars, for example. I don’t see anybody trying to take our cars away. Nor do I see any rumors about car safety laws being the first step on a slippery slope to automobile confiscation. Hell, all our cars driven on public streets have to be insured and registered! Gun owners have been conditioned to believe that required registration of their firearms is not consistent with American values and is unconstitutional.

There are so many guns out in civilian hands in this country that if we stopped all gun sales tomorrow, it would take at least fifty years for there to be a significant drop in gun ownership. Regardless, just as a matter of common decency and common sense, I believe guns need to be regulated and registered. The harder it is for somebody to get ahold of a gun, the more likely it is that they will not use one to commit mass murder. They will not be able to act on the spur of the moment if they have to jump through some hoops in order to get a gun. And yes, I know that there are those who plan these atrocities for a long time. There isn’t a magic wand that can eliminate every possibility, but that doesn’t mean that we shouldn’t try.

And, last but not least, we need to take another look at the Second Amendment. Conservative judges on the Supreme Court decided in the Heller case in 2008 that the amendment allows individuals the right of firearm ownership. This is the Second Amendment: “A well regulated militia, being necessary for the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” No less of a soft, weak liberal than Nixon’s appointed Chief Justice Warren Burger called the gun-ownership view of the Amendment “a fraud on the American public”. 

The Second Amendment needs to be revisited, and its interpretation needs to be revised. It is a matter of common sense and common decency, both of which are in perilously short supply in today’s GOP. America has such potential. It has so much wealth, so many talented people in all forms of industry and commerce and healthcare. Right now, America is being transformed into a two-bit banana republic because of extremely poor governance by the Republican party. Europe is far ahead of us in so many ways. I can say that from my own experience with family members who moved here from Holland four years ago so their son could attend Clark University. My cousin moved there in the early ’80s to take a professor job at the University of Amsterdam. He, his Dutch wife and their son had intended to make their life here, but they cannot, because of the expense of health insurance among other things. They are going back to the good life in Holland, where you don’t get shot in class, and you have a right to health care, not a right to own a man-killing machine.

When I was a boy, I was told that I should be proud to be American, and grateful that I was born here. I was, for many years. It is becoming apparent to me that the American way of life is no longer something to be envious of. It is a hard, brutal, way of life because of our Republican party. The Republican party is a present danger to our democracy and our previous way of life. They have become the enemy within. It is easier to defend against an external enemy than an internal enemy. Both of my parents served honorably in the Second World War. Is this what they were fighting for?